Many times in literature, novelists are influenced by their early life and aspects not related to literature. They may be influenced by other writers and thinkers of the time period, or they may be influenced by tragic events that occur. Aldous Huxley was one such novelist whom was immensely influenced by his surroundings and his peers. His characteristic pessimism stemmed from negative events in his early life. Aldous Huxley’s upbringing and surroundings greatly affected the viewpoints and opinions he expressed in his writings and novels.
Huxley was born into an intellectual family. Both his immediate and extended family was composed of known intellectuals and writers. Huxley lived a privileged early life, showing interest in science and literature. Later in his childhood, he experienced tragedies that would eventually influence his writings and stories. His mother and brother both passed away in his teenage years, and he also began to lose his eyesight due to a severe eye infection (Gale). The First World War also begins to rear its head in this time period. All of these events influence Huxley’s early works. His early poems tell of his feelings of loneliness and negative feelings toward society (Christianson).
During the 1920’s Huxley began a world tour in which he visited different countries. Huxley said in one of his writings that he longed to be, “along the road.” His travels took him many places including India, Japan, and Malaya (Christianson). He wrote many fiction and non-fiction books of his travels. His travelling supplied him with ample information and events that gave the novels he wrote character and a uniqueness only he possessed. During his tour of Asia, Huxley also began to become interested in the Hindu faith and the mysticism surrounding their culture. His interest in mysticism and Hinduism began appearing in his writings later in his life (Christianson).
One of the most influential factors on Huxley’s writings was society itself. Huxley spent much of his time contemplating the future of society. His thoughts and prophecies were summed up in his most memorable novel, Brave New World. His predictions on future society’s characteristics and attitudes were very accurate. Written in 1933, Brave New World predicted attitudes that were present years later in Hitler’s Nazi Germany. The tendency towards social unity and racial superiority is a mainstay of Brave New World. Aldous Huxley observed the governments of the time accumulating power and predicted that eventually freedom would be abolished in favor of faux happiness. These predictions may be applied to the Soviet Union, where communism was supposed to increase the happiness of its subjects, but instead robbed them of freedoms and liberties ("Aldous Huxley A Life of the Mind" 2-7).
Aldous Huxley was very much influenced by his surroundings, peers, and time period. His observance of politics, social tendencies, and different world cultures shaped him as a writer and as a person. They aided in forming Huxley’s signature pessimism and satiric tone. They gave him a base in which to prophesize future society and its many unforeseen problems and challenges. Because of his influences, Huxley will be remembered as one of the great thinkers and philosophers of the twentieth century.
Picture:
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Works Cited
Aldous Huxley A Life of the Mind. 1st ed. New York City, New Yord: Harper Perennial,
2006. 2-7. Print.
"Aldous Huxley." Gale Online Encyclopedia. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Literature Resource
Center. Web. 19 Aug. 2010.
Christianson, Scott R. "Aldous (Leonard) Huxley." British Travel Writers, 1910-1939.
Ed. Barbara Brothers and Julia Marie Gergits. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998.
Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 195. Literature Resource Center. Web. 19
Aug. 2010.
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